Chop up the onion, or, if you are using spring onions, remember that most of the flavour of a spring onion is in the green part so just chop 1/2" off the top and nip the bottom off, before chopping up into pieces around 5mm long.

Skin the garlic, ready to press it

Frozen Kaffir Lime Leaves. Beingfrozen, the flavour is locked in.

Cop up the lime leaves into small bits.

Some people prefer to leave them in whole and then remove them after cooking - frozen Kaffir lime leaves are quite strong so you might decide that you want to do that as well.

Reheat the pot and put in galangal and lemongrass and fry for around half a minute or so.

Then add the chillies and fry for about another minute.

Add the onion and the garlic and fry. When the oil is absorbed, add around 100mls water, put the lid on and let it cook until the onion is soft.

While it is doing that, add the basil, coriander and lime leaves to it.

Chinese supermarket tofu.This shows two of the three blocks

Drain and then wash the tofu and then chop it up into roughly 1.5cm cubes.